In advance of the 2016 Group of 20 (“G20”) Summit, which convened in Hangzhou, China, on September 4 and 5, several Democratic Senators sent a letter to President Obama urging him to make cybersecurity a priority.  The Senators reasoned that discussions regarding cybersecurity in financial institutions “merit attention not only in finance ministries and central banks, but also in executive leadership circles across the globe.”  They suggested the development of a global strategy to combat cyber threats in the international community.

In their letter, the Senators explained that cyber-criminals, whether independent or state-sponsored, imperil the interconnected system of global commerce in a way that very few threats do.  They cited last February’s hacking of the Central Bank of Bangladesh, in which $81 million was stolen from the bank, as an example of the threat.  Hackers in that attack used the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (“SWIFT”) international messaging service to request nearly $1 billion from an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

The Senators contended that global coordination on cybersecurity will serve to safeguard the integrity of the financial system and improve collaboration among international law enforcement and financial regulators to better enable them to pursue terrorist financing.   

The signatories on the letter included Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), a co-founder of the newly formed Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, Gary Peters (D-MI), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI).  Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellon were copied on the letter. 

President Obama did raise the issue of cybersecurity in his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.  In a news conference following his 90-minute meeting with the Russian leader, President Obama said that he urged Putin not to let cyberspace become the “wild, wild west” and issued a warning against a cybersecurity arms race, stating that America had “more capacity than anybody, both offensively and defensively.”  Nevertheless, cybersecurity was not mentioned in the G20 Leaders’ Communique released at the conclusion of the Summit.